Solving For X

I’m working on my OMG for September.  The pattern is Olde Glory by Donna Robertson from Fabric Cafe.  I bought a 3 yard quilt kit from her because I liked the pattern so much.  In addition I had been collecting red, white and blue fabrics for Quilts of Valor (QOV).  I don’t exactly recall how I came to the decision I did.  I am pretty prolific at making the quilt tops but not so much quilting and binding them also known as finishing them.  But I decided to make QOVs for people I know to help the finishing part.  I am starting with my cousins.  I posted a comment on FB and asked who of my cousins had served.  It was just a general question and I got the responses I needed.  There are six of them.

Armed with the above I took the pattern and started tweaking it to get to a 60x80 size.  I was fortunate in that increasing all the pattern pieces by 33% got me very close to where I needed to be.  I have to add 8” of something to the length.  My go to is checkerboards.  I knew I was going to have extra from my strip sets that would be cut off.  I thought I’d be able to get enough for the top and bottom that serendipitously was the right width to achieve my 8” goal.

Yesterday was another sew day at the church.  My goal was to 1) press all six strip sets 2) trim them to length 3) sew the star strip for the sides 4) pair the stars and stripe sets.  I have learned to start with one when there’s an assembly line.  This way you can work through any kinks in your plan.  I did.  My trimmings were not going to yield the additional 8” I needed.  I was able to get 7”.  To the drawing board we go!

I decided to use a coping strip of navy to round out the extra length.  In doing this I can break up the bottom white strip from the white border.  When I select borders I try NOT to put the same colors against each other thereby keeping a straight line visually.  If you look at the picture of the pattern they use a white border against the white piecing.  I guess it’s just one of my peccadillos.

My current plan is to add a blue border at the top and bottom, add the alternating squares of red and white then add a narrow white border and then a wide border of the navy to bring it up to size.  Let me know if you have other thoughts or ideas.  In the meantime I’ll be attaching the stars to the strip sets.  Note that this is not completely laid out like the pictures.  It was just to give me a visual to work with.

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